Boundary Commission ox and horse train near Dead Horse Creek in the Pembina Hills, in a photo taken in 1874 (prabably 4 mi. [6.7 km]) south of Thornhill, Manitoba. Credit: Provincial Archives Manitoba

Fort Dufferin, The Fortyninth, and the West Reserve 1875 (Part 2)

by Edwin D. Hoeppner

At this point the first Mennonites of the West Reserve are out on their claims, establishing homes and communities, bringing home their dearly bought supplies from Emerson and Pembina and the first instalment of flour and grain, the "Brotschuld" courtesy of the Ontario Mennonites, on their substantial wagons, and preparing for their first Manitoba winter. Their Fort Dufferin sojourn was behind them - but the lonely, little and probably unmarked graves would not soon be forgotten by the families affected (in part 1 these were referred to as located south of Dufferin, see p.7, HP, No.28. but in actual fact they are north of Dufferin).

Fort Dufferin, named after the Governor-General of the day, is not only central to the establishment of the Mennonites west of the Red River - it was also of significance in an episode concerning the arrival of many non-Mennonites, who came to settle in southern and southwestern Manitoba. There appears to be some uncertainty as to how long Dufferin continued to serve as an immigration reception facility. In a report "Dufferin" prepared for the Manitoba Historic Resources Branch in October 1975, it is stated "Just how long Dufferin was used for this purpose is not known."⁷ It can now be confirmed that it was still in use for this purpose in 1881 when a family by the name of Wilson "... spent the winter of 1881 in the old Dufferin Hotel near Emerson, before moving on to Turtle Mountain.⁸ There is some description of the family's travel along the Boundary Commission Trail, but, oddly enough, there is no reference to the posts marking this road at 250 foot intervals through the Mennonite settlement, nor is there any apparent reference to stopping places until after they had reached the Pembina Hills.

The importance of Dufferin as an historical artifact and landmark transcends the Mennonite experience there. It was constructed to house and to serve as the headquarters for the British (and Canadian) North American Boundary Commission 1872-1876. By 1874 the boundary survey was nearly complete and only a few Commission staff were still there. The newly forming North West Mounted Police assembled at Dufferin and in 1874 set out on their famous march West to bring Canadian sovereignty and law enforcement to the West.

Thanks to the recent re-enactment of this NWMP march West in 1999 as a celebration of the 125th anniversary of this event, this episode is now somewhat more widely known. The boundary survey of 1872 - 1876 was a tri-national project, with the United States North American Boundary Commission headquartered at the military installation of Fort Pembina near Pembina, North Dakota. There was considerable interaction between the two boundary commissions, who together, each on its own side of the "fortyninth," marked its location from Lake of the Woods to the continental divide - and this suggested the quotation from Robert Frost's poem with which this article began. Once the NWMP had departed from Dufferin, it was essentially vacant for 1875 and could, seemingly almost providentially, shelter our forebears in 1875 and thereafter. By means of its function, or rather functions, as home for an international survey, temporary and brief home for a national institution, the NWMP, and temporary home for a variety of in-coming immigrants and other homesteaders, Fort Dufferin is a national, provincial and local historic site.

It is beyond the purpose of this article to say much about the boundary survey, but some things are essential for our understanding of how and why southern Manitoba came to be the way it was and is. There is substantial literature on the subject and a small selection of it is listed in the bibliography.⁹ As was intimated in the introductory paragraph, together with the bibliographic references, there is a substantial historic record of the near-boundary area (on both sides) going back just over two centuries to the 1790s.

It is most probable that Alexander Henry's carts on their trips from Pembina to the vicinity of Pinancewaywining in 1802 created the first cart trails, of which the Boundary Commission Trail, and the Post Road were later modifications and/or further developments. Included in the photographs is a view of the Boundary Commission's Pembina Mountain East Depot. This depot was about 43 miles from Dufferin on the B.C. trail/Post Road not far from Mountain City (SW Ľ, 24-2-6 W),¹⁰ about 4.5 miles south-southwest of Morden, incidentally, within a few miles of the no longer extant village of Waldheim, which was also on the Post Road. The Boundary Commission Trail/Post Road ascended the Pembina Hills at this point, about 9 or 10 miles due north of the boundary, because the slope of the escarpment is much more gradual here than it is farther south, or farther north, and it was merely following the path marked out in 1859 by John Palliser's British North American Exploring Expedition 1857 - 1860.

Fort Dufferin

There were approximately eleven buildings plus three latrines in 1872 with further storage and stables and temporary buildings added in 1873. The following details are taken from the 1975 Historic Resources Branch Report.⁶ The base camp was designed by Lieutenant A.C. Ward and the construction was done by a contractor who obtained most of his labour and materials from Minnesota. The main accommodation buildings are described as: "all frame and consisting of officers' quarters -- a two storey building -- and attached kitchens, three one-storey buildings for the assistants and men, and a stable for fifty horses, store- house, cook house, bakery, work-shop, and smith- shop."

Three buildings, each of two rooms for fourteen men in each room, plus officers' quarters for twelve suggest accommodation for only a total of 96 people was available (96=3 x (14 x2) + 12). This would certainly confirm Mr Jacob Fehr's recollection that there was little elbow room. Perhaps some people had to be accommodated in the shops, store houses, and/or stables. Recall the MDFP report of 53 families debarking on July 14, 1875: using Mr Shantz' figure of 5.5 persons per family, this gives us a total of about 292 persons.

These people must have been extremely anxious to get out on the land after a stay of six weeks at Dufferin, for a number of reasons!

It must be remembered that the West Reserve had no legal existence as such in 1875. These eighteen townships were not officially set aside for exclusive Mennonite settlement until the Order-in-Council of April 25, 1876.¹⁰ It appears that the Dominion Lands agency acted on the knowledge, presumably internal instructions, that the area would be officially reserved for Mennonite settlement - but this information was not available to the non-Mennonite settlers, mainly from Ontario, who had already made claims on well-wooded sections along Dead Horse Creek and Plum Creek (or "River") near Waldheim, and on the slopes of the Pembina Hills, in the Spring of 1875, sections which were within the area to be reserved for the Mennonites. A conflict was pre- programmed - but that only became serious in late 1877.¹¹

This year, 125 years after the initial reception at Fort Dufferin, we remember with deep gratitude those who made great sacrifices to pioneer in a new land, and we reflect also with equal gratitude on the society that was prepared to receive our forebears.

Endnotes

6. John Warkentin and Richard Ruggles; Historical Atlas of Manitoba (Manitoba Historical Society, 1970) (pp 235 and 269).

7. Dufferin by B. Potyondi; Historic Resources Branch October 1975 page 26.

8. Helen E. Cowan; On the Old Boundary Commission Trail (Deloraine Times and Waskada News, Deloraine, Man. Thursday, March 30, 1944).

9. International Boundary Survey and Fort Dufferin.

9.1. John E Parsons West On The 49th Parallel - Red River to th~ Rockies 1872 - 1876 (William Merrow and Company, New York, 1963).

9.2. Marjorie Forrester; Shooting the Stars and Chaining the Land (The Beaver, Spring 1960 pp 10 - 17).

9.3. Marjorie Forrester; That Northwest Angle (The Beaver, Autumn, 1960 pp 32 - 38).

9.4. Marjorie Forrester; Markers on the Forty-Ninth (Manitoba Historical Society Series III No 16 pp 78 - 90).

9.5. John Peter Turner; The Historic Forty-Ninth (RCMP Quarterly Vol 9 No 2 Oct.1941, pp.166-177 and Vol.9, No.3, Jan.1942, pp.270-281.

9.6. Sergeant H.A. Stewart; Fort Dufferin (RCMP Quarterly Vol 7 No 4 April 1940 pp 377 - 379).

9.7. Capt.S. Anderson, R.E: Chief Astronomer to the N.A. Boundary Comm~ss~on; The North American Boundary from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains (A Paper read, March 27th, 1876 Royal Geographical Society, R.G.S. Journal Vol 46, London, 1876 p. 228).

9.8. Capt. Featherstonhaugh, R.E.;Narrative of the Operations of the British North American Boundary Commission, 1872 - 1876 (Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers Vol XXIII, New Series, Woolwich, 1876, pp 24 - 49).

9.9. Suzan Scott; Fort Dufferin (Historic Resources Branch August 1972).

10. PAM MG 14 B44 Howard Winkler Papers; Mountain City (1875? - 1883).

11. E.K. Francis; In Search of Utopia (D.W. Friesen & Sons Ltd, Altona, Manitoba, 1955) pp 62.

12. Lawrence Klippenstein; West Lynne and Fort Bufferin, talk presented at MMHS Historical Workshop and Tour, Gretna Prairie Senior Centre, April 24, 1999.